Oh Dreams I hate you
by Adria626
Summary: Helen dreams, but sometimes she dreams of something out of reach. First fan fic story ever.


**Dreaming of a Different Reality **

**I dreamed to dream of you…It was a sweet dream, while it lasted. **

** King Arthur-First Knight**

Helen had never felt so tired in her life. All she wanted to do, as she stared aimlessly at her wall, was find a reason why she could not sleep. After a couple of hours she decided she would repaint the wall a color less depressing and more cheerful one. A good dose of electric green and lightning orange would liven it up nicely.

She supposed the reason for her melancholy as of late had to do, not with John, as usual, but with Tesla. Sure the abnormal had been devious enough to catch, but not so much that it required all the whining. (Aka bitching and moaning).

She had been forced to bring Nikola on the mission, something that he did not want to do. When told why, he growled and downed the rest of his wine, glaring at her. If he had been more childish and less angry she knew he would have stuck out his tongue. As it was, she was lucky he did not stoop as low as to flip her off.

Helen knew interrupting Nikola when he was working on a new invention would be hazardous to anyone who dared interrupt. Helen was not an exception.

Even knowing that about her friend, the knowledge had placed her in a foul mood. Everyone had caught on in the process of catching the bloody, stupid abnormal. They knew to stay away from Helen and Tesla. They needed Nikola's magnetic powers to compensate for the two magnetic fish Helen had heard of from a contact.

The contact had lied to her about the fish being easy to catch, so by the end of the night everyone was a bit on the pissy side.

Nikola had become a recluse and quite cantankerous before he had locked himself away in the coldest, emptiest, dreariest, farthest tower from her quarters.

She supposed he was angry at her for choosing John. But, John, John was dead now.

Helen would rather not think about how she and Nikola were the only surviving members of the Five. It made her heart ache and it made her feel old, as old as an immortal should feel. It pained her more though that she had hardly cried, wept, sobbed, or genuinely-generally had gotten upset over John. Yet, Nikola being angry with her upset her more and brought her to tears more often now that Nikola's behavior had overcome the grief of John's passing.

She supposed she was a glutton for punishment. Always had been really. She had always found a reason for the reason on top of the reason. Like the line over the line crossed over the line not allowed to be crossed. Nikola had always loved crossing that line; with a smile and hop skip across. James-James had been the voice-her voice of reason.

Her throat constricted at the thought of James. She missed him most of all.

The hurt John caused, she knew, stopped her over sensitive body from feeling anything akin to what James's corpse and Nikola's sullen form made her feel. She had given John many-too many chances. In the end of his life she had succumbed to his bloody charm and fell into his embrace once more. He was gentle-too gentle. He never knew she cried silently afterward. She did not think he deserved to know. A part of her wondered if he would have cared. But then again the man had deserved to not know a great many things that did not matter anymore. If he were still alive, she doubted she would ever find the courage to tell him the truth. It made her feel like a coward.

Helen wanted to hate a God she did not believe in anymore. She had loved a murderer; blaspheming his name seeming nothing-comparatively.

Nikola would not approve of her thoughts. He, at his core, was a sort of religious man. Of course he had been brought up on it more than Helen had with her father being a scientist.

What had Nikola been? Perhaps her only friend in the world, and he was slipping from her. She wanted to not care, but she cared more about him than most people she knew-barring a few. Okay…Henry, Will, Big Guy, and most of all Ashley.

With Nikola's return he had replaced the gaping, invisible hole the death of her daughter had left in her heart. The urge to visit him never felt greater, and yet it took all her will power just to think coherent thoughts, let alone move from her couch.

Helen laid her head back on the couch and quickly realized she still had it up. Taking her hair out of her green ponytail she leaned back once more and closed her eyes.

A smile reached her face; not of melancholy, but of happiness she had not felt in the three years since Ashley's death.

She woke in the dream to laughter. Helen rose, smoothing out the wrinkles in her comfortable green dress, and followed the giggling to the library. What she saw almost made her cry.

Two little boys and a girl who looked like Ashley (just with darker hair), sat on the hardwood floor playing. One boy played with a Lego pirate set and the other concentrated on putting together a puzzle of the Eiffel Tower. The girl watched the boys play as she did her homework, entertained by them more than her math problems.

Helen looked across the library to see herself reading a book next to a man with dark hair and a wickedly, crooked, cocky, toothy grin. He held her hand in his as they read Dracula, laughing at the irony and lies.

The girl who looked like Ashley, but younger, only thirteen, held in her grin.

The boys were obviously twins, identical to their mannerisms. The only way to tell the difference, she saw, was one boy's blonde, almost white hair was long and the other was short. They looked like mini-Nikolas.

"Remember Dracula was written by an alcoholic Irish…" Helen nudged Nikola in the ribs.

He glanced over at his sons and saw that they were fighting off sleep.

"Oh right, boys, so sorry to spoil your fun but it is late so…"

Helen glared at Nikola for being afraid of two little boys. "Come now boys, you can play more in the morning, it's time for bed. I will not have you sleeping on the hard floor."

Helen made to get up, but her daughter stood up quicker.

"It's okay mom, I can take Jamie and Gregory to bed. You two can finish your book, or whatever it is you were doing. I'll be down in a few hours to do the rest of my homework."

The girl gently persuaded the tired, pre-occupied boys to stop playing. They both eventually willingly took her hand.

"Thank you Adrienne."

"No problem mom." The girl smiled at her parents and left the library.

"I am so glad you have been pretending to read a book that we both know you have memorized years ago."

Helen pretended to nonchalantly ignore her husband, hiding a grin behind her book.

"And your point is Nikola?"

"If you have not noticed, the children are gone and I've often wondered what this would be like, me you-us in the library-alone. This time there are no children to interrupt."

"What are you going to do about it Niko?"

"Oh I do love it when you say my name like that."

"Oh I know, why don't you…" Helen laughed, but was cut off by an amorous kiss from Nikola that made her drop her book, grab his head, and quickly straddle his lap.

The dream faded and turned into Helen's room. She could smell wine and hear the soft breathing of someone cuddly next to her. She felt the contentment wash over her and she wished suddenly that the dream would come true.

"Helen go back to sleep, I'll explain in the morning." She did as she was told, not putting much thought into what her dream Nikola would need to explain.

She woke up to the sun shining in her face and Nikola's grin making it somewhat brighter.

"Hello Helen, I know, I know you must be angry but I know, and I am a genius, that you would possibly be a tad bit angrier no one rescued you from that horrible position on the couch. I thought for sure you were dead, all contorted and such. I would have left you there otherwise, for you seemed content enough, but you know me."

"Nikola I'm not mad. I am actually glad you are here." She touched his week-long stubble which would never grow into a beard, forcing herself from giggling.

His smile grew bigger. "I am happy now Helen, more so then I have been as of late. I thought you would like some privacy. A month is not nearly enough time to grieve over a lover, no matter how…"

"I know, but you are here now. Please, Nikola, stay with me." She gave him a pleading look to match his confused expression.

"If you are sure…"

"I am, come now let us go to bed, there are plenty of things you can do to make me forget you ever were…"

Nikola cut her off with a kiss and for the first time since John and Ashley's death, she smiled a genuine smile.

The scene changed yet again and Helen knew the ache in her heart had nothing to do with something she could not have.

She lay there in her bed, next to a man who she knew would be with her for eternity, as he promised.

Her heart broke, knowing that she did not love him in return.

She missed Nikola, she thought as the tears fell silently onto her pillow.

He had said once that life sucked and then you don't die. He was wrong. Life sucked, because Nikola was dead, and this time he was not coming back.

She felt like she could cry for eternity and no one would notice.


End file.
